Putin has a request for migrants coming to Russia
People looking to relocate to Russia should first study the country’s customs and language before making the move, President Vladimir Putin has said while addressing concerns about the cultural impact of migration.
Speaking on Thursday during a meeting of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, the Russian leader said, “We need to make sure that people who would like to come to work here prepare for this trip to our country and for work here [while] in their homelands.”
According to Putin, this includes learning the Russian language, the country’s laws and the customs of its people, as well ensuring that they know their rights. The Russian president said that this issue should be worked on in collaboration with representatives from the Commonwealth of Independent States – an organization of other former Soviet republics.
Putin’s remarks come shortly after the head of Russia’s Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeev, sent a letter to the mayor of Moscow, Sergey Sobyanin, asking him to consider investigating complaints from local residents regarding signs in Uzbek and Tajik in Prokshino and Lesoparkovaya metro stations in the city's south. The decision came in response to the relocation of the United Migration Center of the Moscow region to Sakharovo.
“Instead of a policy of integrating migrants into society and local culture, we create comfortable conditions for the stay of newcomers without knowledge and mastery of the Russian language,” the appeal to Fadeev read.
In summer this year, more than 100 people were arrested in the Kuzminki area of Moscow after a massive fight between two groups, mainly migrants, broke out. Some reports suggested that the brawl had been pre-planned.
Moscow is home to a significant number of migrant workers from Central Asian countries, such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Russia’s economy relies somewhat on this cheaper labor from these former Soviet republics, namely in the service and construction sectors. Last December, the Ministry of Internal Affairs estimated that almost half of all migrants living in Russia had left during the pandemic.
